Meet Brad Bebout

Astrobiologist
Biogeochemist
Marine Microbial Ecologist

"Did you ever wonder
about how the plants in the sea get their nitrogen?... many of
the microbial mats that we study literally take their nitrogen
out of the air..."

Who I am and What I Do
I am a research scientist at NASA Ames Research Center. My field of
expertise is Microbial Ecology, and I am interested in all aspects of
the ecology of microorganisms, how they survive in the sometimes harsh
environments where they live, as well as how they affect our environment
on Earth (and they do have a big effect). I maintain a research
laboratory, and do research both in the lab, and on the field. One
of the favorite parts of my work involves creating newer and better
"gizmos" to measure biological and chemical processes in microbial communities.
That means that I spend a fair amount of my time trying to make the
gizmos work for our applications. I work in the Exobiology Branch at
Ames Research Center. Scientists in the Exobiology Branch are interested
in all sorts of questions about the origin and evolution of life on
Earth, and possibly on other planets. My particular area of research
is in "microbial
mats." These are well developed communities of microorganisms that
grow at various locations on Earth. Although they are not so common
today, they are the oldest forms of life on Earth. The reason why we
are interested in learning as much as we can about them, is that they
teach us about early life on Earth. Since they have been alive on Earth
longer than anything else, they may also have a lot to teach us about
what to look for on other planets.

Career Journey
How did I end up as a NASA scientist? Sometimes, I am not even sure
myself. My training is in the field of Marine Sciences, and I came to
work at NASA because many of the areas I had been studying were of great
interest to NASA in its efforts to understand the evolution of life
on Earth. I originally got interested in Marine Sciences as a direct
result of SCUBA diving. I started undergraduate school at the University
of Nevada, Reno, but I got so involved with SCUBA diving in the Monterey
Bay that I transferred to the University of California at Santa Cruz,
so I could go diving more often. I took a lot of classes in marine biology,
did a senior project in marine biology, and ended up going to graduate
school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which has
a program in Marine Sciences. My Masters thesis work was about the role
of marine fungi in feeding salt marsh snails. My Ph.D. work was on microbial
mats, specifically how these mats get the nitrogen that they need for
growth. We put fertilizer on plants to give them the nitrogen that they
need to grow, but did you ever wonder about how the plants in the sea
get their nitrogen? It turns out that many of the microbial mats that
we study are able to literally take their nitrogen out of the air, using
a process called nitrogen fixation. After finishing up my Ph.D. work,
I spent two years in Germany at the Max Planck Institute for Marine
Microbiology, and two years at the University of Maryland's Horn Point
Lab, on the Chesapeake Bay's Eastern Shore.

Growing Up
I began life as a Californian, I was born in Berkeley when my dad was
in school at the University of California, Berkeley. After he graduated,
we lived in various places in California. When I was eight years old,
my dad joined the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID), and we traveled and lived all over the world. The time abroad
was very important in shaping the way I think about almost everything,
and I really appreciate having had the opportunity to see so many things.
When it was time for me to go to high school, my family moved back to
the United States, and I entered Carson High School, in Carson City,
Nevada. I was interested in becoming a veterinarian, and so, after high
school graduation, I entered the pre-vet program at the University of
Nevada, Reno. After taking up SCUBA diving as a hobby, however, I decided
that what I really wanted to study were the critters that lived underwater.

Personal
My wife, Lee Prufert-Bebout, and I both work as research scientists
at NASA Ames, and our 4 year old daughter goes to day care "on campus"
(NASA Ames is located at the location of the Moffett Naval Air Field),
too. Every day the three of us car pool about an hour from the redwood
forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains to Silicon Valley. It wouldn't surprise
me in the least if our daughter grows up to be a scientist, too, as
that hour is usually completely filled with her questions to us about
just about anything that you can imagine. On weekends, we go over the
"hill" the other way, to Santa Cruz, on the coast to go hiking, or to
just hang out. My favorite thing in the world to do is to race sailboats,
and although I am not getting to do that as often as I would like lately,
I have raced on all kinds of boats, from dinghies to Chesapeake Bay
log canoes.

Advice
My advice to anyone interested in pursuing a career in science (or in
anything else as far as I can tell) is the same advice that my parents
gave me: "Do what you love, and everything will work out for the best."
You know what, they were right! I am extremely fortunate to have a job
doing what I love to do: finding out things that no one has ever found
out before. If I can do it, I think that anyone can.